Despite a large array of work broadly concerned with the cultures of news production, studies rarely attempt to tackle journalism culture and its dimensional structure on the conceptual level. One purpose of this study is, therefore, to develop a theoretical foundation on the basis of which systematic and comparative research of journalism cultures is feasible and meaningful. Based on a review of the relevant literature, journalism culture is deconstructed in terms of its three main constituents (Institutional Roles, Epistemologies and Ethical Ideologies), further divided into seven principal dimensions: Interventionism, Power Distance, Market Orientation, Objectivism, Empiricism, Relativism and Idealism.
Each of the seven dimensions spans two ideal-typical extremes that do rarely become manifest in the "real" world of journalistic practice. Most of the times the truth lies somewhere between the poles. The proposed theory opens up a seven-dimensional continuous space that can readily serve as a conceptual grid model to map and classify diverse journalism cultures. Although the various dimensions of journalism culture do more or less surface in all nations and media organizations, the relative importance of these dimensions is likely to vary. Many journalists, for instance, follow the neutral-objective paradigm, while others prefer the advocacy approach. These relative differences in the extent to which journalists endorse these dimensions creates a universe of different and co-existing journalism cultures.
Each of the seven dimensions spans two ideal-typical extremes that do rarely become manifest in the "real" world of journalistic practice. Most of the times the truth lies somewhere between the poles. The proposed theory opens up a seven-dimensional continuous space that can readily serve as a conceptual grid model to map and classify diverse journalism cultures. Although the various dimensions of journalism culture do more or less surface in all nations and media organizations, the relative importance of these dimensions is likely to vary. Many journalists, for instance, follow the neutral-objective paradigm, while others prefer the advocacy approach. These relative differences in the extent to which journalists endorse these dimensions creates a universe of different and co-existing journalism cultures.